Addy The Bull Rider

Yesterday I went to visit my good friend Addy for the first time since Xia was born. I’ve been dying to show our new baby girl to Addy and her family! Of course she slept the whole time, but at least they got to see her

We had a nice visit. I tried to keep it short this time… I think we were there for about an hour and a half. Jada ran outside to play with her friend, and Addy’s boy took Titus to see the cows and pigs. Me and Addy just sat around and caught up on what we’d been doing for the past few months.

I told her that we now have 14 chickens. The last time we talked we had just gotten our first six. She was surprised that we had that many! I told her about how we found all of those eggs hidden under the water stove. Knowing that she free ranges her chickens, I asked her if she does the “sink or float” test to see if her eggs are still good. Of course, she did know that trick. But her husband chimed in, laughing, and told me about a time when he cracked an egg into a hot frying pan and it ended up being green! It stunk the whole house up! Then Addy told me of another time when they cracked one open and there was a dead baby chick in there. Yuck!

I asked her how her garden did. She said she had been canning stuff like crazy! I told her all about my Blossom End Rot on my tomatoes, the tomatoes in the goat’s pen, and how I totally blew it with my first watermelon. She was sweet not to laugh at all of my rookie mistakes. She advised that I crush up eggshells and sprinkle it around my tomatoes next year. She told me that they have several watermelon plants growing randomly in the yard from where the kids stood on the back porch and spat their watermelon seeds out the year before! How funny!

I asked how their cows were doing (seemed like something one homesteader would ask another). She told me that her milk cow had dried up. Then her oldest daughter, who was sitting with us in the living room, spoke up with great excitement, “Oh! She hasn’t heard the story! Yay! Somebody who hasn’t heard yet!” I was very intrigued, “What story?” I asked.

Addy smiled, and began the tale…

She had gone out to the barn, just like every morning, to milk her cow. The cow came into the barn, and Addy put the head clamp thing around the cow’s head while it munched it’s grain, so that she could milk. She had just sat down on her little stool to begin her task when all of a sudden one of the bulls from the field came busting in through the barn door, practically taking down the whole wall with him!

Evidently, the cow was in heat. And boy did that bull know it!

He came in with such ferocity, that Addy was knocked to the ground. In his rage, he was thrashing all around, and poor Addy was trapped in the midst of it all. He banged her up quite badly, and even tossed her up against the wall a couple of times! Fortunately, Addy’s oldest daughter (age 12) always goes in with her when she milks. The quick thinking girl grabbed a pitch fork and courageously stabbed the mad bull over and over, trying to get him off of her mother. Blood was going everywhere.

The youngest daughter just happened to be in the barn too, up in the loft playing. They yelled to her to go and call their Papa. When he got the call, he dropped what he was doing and quickly came home to rescue his poor wife.

Addy said that the word quickly spread that she was being manhandled by a bull, and along with her husband came trucks and trucks of men… armed men. Seems every one of them came packing some kind of heat, from small handguns, to bazooka type artillery!

She said it took about 11 shots to bring the bull down. Poor Addy was pretty beat up. Her legs were terribly banged and bruised, and the skin was all torn. Her back was all bruised up too, from being tossed into the barn wall. (She showed me what remained of her bruises.) They took her to the hospital where she had to get a Tetanus shot. Fortunately, and quite miraculously, she did not have any broken bones!

Later her husband joked, “Don’t you think you’re a little old to be riding bulls?!”

The Lord sure was looking out for her! That could have gone devastatingly wrong! I am so glad that she was okay.

As for the bull… well, they were eating him for lunch.

So now her milk cow is dried up and she’s out of milk. She’s having to drink store bought until she gets another milk cow. She said that store bought whole milk makes them sick, literally. Her kids were throwing up at first. The oldest daughter went on to tell me how horribly disgusting 2% milk is. They couldn’t believe it when I told them that in my house we almost always drink 2%. They looked at me like, “How in the world do you stand that stuff??” I shrugged, “I just grew up drinking 2%.” They are so used to fresh whole milk, nothing else seems right!

As we were talking the girls came in from outside, hot and sweaty. Addy’s daughter poured some apple cider ( juice) from a glass jar for the two of them to drink. That reminded me of last year’s apple picking. I asked Addy if she was going to do that again. Sadly, she told me that the trees just did not produce much this year. Bummer! I was really looking forward to helping them pick apples and make fresh apple juice!

She told me that Ms. Clint isn’t going to have her annual Corn Frolic either; the deer ate all of her corn! But, Addy made a suggestion to her that got her very excited- this year she’s going to have a Cast Iron Frolic. Everyone invited will bring a dish made only in cast iron. That sounds like fun! I asked Addy if she would let me know when it is. I’m excited about it too! I better start practicing my cast iron cooking!

Before I left, I asked her if I could borrow one of the movies she has told me so much about. It’s called Love Comes Softly. (I watched it that night, and laughed and cried! It was SO good!!). She’d been telling me all about these movies, I guess it’s a series. I’m going to have to borrow the others now!

It was really good seeing them again. I’ll visit them again soon. I ordered a book for Addy that she had loaned out and needed another copy of, so I’ll be bringing it to her whenever it comes in the mail. She was going to make soap, then realized that she couldn’t find her book! (It was called Soap: Making It, Enjoying It.)

Maybe I can help her make soap next time! That would be cool. Can’t wait to visit again!

8 Comments »

Just wanted to add that if you enjoyed the Love Comes Softly movie then you really should try to read the series, the books are amazing, The movies are good the books are WAY better!!!

Infact the movies jumble up the books and change things around so they aren’t following the books exactly but the movies are still good.

I can’t reccommend the books enough, infact, Janette Oke has a few different book series, all christian based, all extremely wonderful!!!
They are such a good read it is extremely hard to put them down once you pick them up!!!

Hows Addy by the way? I know you said you wouldn’t post about her unless someone asked, I just hope she is doing ok with all of her health problems!!!

Thank you for asking about her. She is struggling still, but seems to be improving. She is in a wheel chair whenever they leave the house, and a church group built them a front porch with a wheel chair ramp so that she can get in and out of the house easily. She was walking a tiny bit last time I was there. Just not herself again yet.

I LOVE the Love Comes softly series….I have not seen the movies, but the books are wonderful! So are all of the books written by Janette Oke! Her books are wonderful! I highly recommend reading any and all of them!

Oh my goodness, poor Addy! Talk about an interesting day for her. Glad she’s healing well, and they got lunch (and I’m sure many dinners) out of the deal.

Ah, the “Love” series… http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0345591/ or http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/o/janette-oke/
There’s a bunch of the movies. I pretty much flop in front of the TV when the Hallmark channel is doing a marathon of them. I think the final two in the series were being filmed this year or last, I forget. So neat. Hubby teases me, but hey, it’s romance with wild west, of course I’m going to get sucked in.

Oh, almost forgot – thanks to you and Addy… I finally got myself a copy of that herbal remedy book today (after stewing about the purchase for a while), and within 2 minutes found something to try to help out hubby with an issue he’s had lately. And I have the ingredients out in my garden too boot. So awesome. So thank you!